School Composition and Resources

Schools with Students Having the Language of the Test as Their Native Language

Exhibit 5.2 presents principals’ categorizations of their schools according to the percentage of students who spoke the language of the PIRLS 2016 assessment as their first language. Sixty-three percent were in schools where most students (more than 90%) spoke the language of the PIRLS assessment as their first language, and another 20 percent were in schools where the majority of students (51-90%) spoke the language of the assessment as their first language. Both groups of students had higher average reading achievement than the 18 percent of students attending schools where only half of the students (or less) spoke the language of the assessment as their native language (512 and 515 vs. 493).